I'm not writing this as someone who beat self-sabotage. I still do it. Last good stretch I had, I felt the pull within days.
What's changed is that I catch it more often, and earlier. That's the whole win, and I'll take it.
So how do you stop self-sabotaging? You probably don't stop it in one go. You interrupt it. You learn to spot the moment you start building an exit or an excuse, and you put something between the urge and the act. Then you work on what's driving it, which for most of us is protecting a fragile sense of self. Psychologist Christian Jarrett, in a BBC Science Focus piece, points to two things with evidence behind them: self-compassion, and a learning mindset where a setback counts as information instead of a verdict on your worth. I'd add a third that's specific to brains like mine. Plan for what success costs you.
Here's what that looks like for me.
1. Know your moves
Everybody sabotages in their own dialect. Mine has a few favourite words. I stop answering. I start something new so the working thing gets less of me. I take on too much. I go quiet with people who were helping. In my using years, a good stretch could be when things went sideways, and I haven't touched cocaine or heroin in sixteen years now, so at least that move is retired.
I keep a short list of mine. Literally written down. When I catch myself doing one, I can't pretend it's a fresh, reasonable decision. It's move number three again.
If you don't know your moves yet, look at the last two or three things that fell apart right when they were going well. What did you do in the week before? That's your list.
2. Name the moment out loud
Self-sabotage loves to disguise itself as common sense. "I'm just too busy." "This isn't really my thing anymore." "They'll be better off without me running it."
So I say the real version. "This is going well and I'm scared." Sometimes to myself, sometimes to Sandra, my partner. It's embarrassing. It also works better than anything else I've tried, because once it's said in plain words, the disguise falls off.
There's more on why this kicks in at all in why I wreck things when they go well.
3. Spot the excuse you're building in advance
Psychologists call a lot of self-sabotage self-handicapping: you create an obstacle so that if you fail, you can blame the obstacle. Skip the prep. Stay up too late. Pick the fight the night before the big day.
When I catch myself setting up a handicap, I ask a dumb, useful question: what excuse am I building, and who is it for? Usually it's for me. It's so I never have to find out whether I was good enough with nothing in the way.
4. Be less of a bastard to yourself
This is the one I resisted most. Self-compassion sounded soft. Fake. Like a poster in a dentist's office.
Then I read what Kristin Neff, the researcher who built the self-compassion scale, actually means by it. Her definition is practical. Self-kindness instead of self-judgment when you mess up. Remembering that failing and feeling inadequate are part of being human, not proof you're uniquely broken. And noticing painful feelings without either burying them or blowing them up into a disaster.
That last bit hit me. My whole life, I've either swallowed things or exploded. There wasn't much in between.
Why does this help with sabotage? Because a lot of sabotage is shame management. If one failure means you're worthless, you'll do anything to avoid a fair test. If a failure just means you failed at a thing, the stakes drop, and you can afford to actually try. Jarrett makes the same point.
Her book is where I'd start if you're skeptical like I was. Some of it reads like a pep talk. Do the exercises anyway.
Self-Compassion
Kristin Neff
My take. Shame fed my using and my blow-ups. This is the research-backed antidote. Sounds soft. It isn't.
Good to know. Some of it reads like a pep talk. Do the exercises anyway.
5. Treat the setback as data
The learning mindset is simple to say and hard to live. After something goes wrong, ask what you'd do differently, instead of what it says about you. I've had a lot of practice with the second question and very little with the first.
When I do this right, I write down one thing I learned and one thing I'll change. Two lines. No essay about my character.
6. Plan for what success costs
I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) at 50, during a breakdown in the COVID years. That changed how I see a lot of my old "sabotage." For me, success usually means more people and more time being "on." I can run a room. It drains me. Before I knew I was autistic, I read that drain as a sign I didn't want the thing, and I pulled out.
So now, when something is going well, I plan the recovery along with the work. Quiet days after big ones. Fewer new projects while the current one is growing. I start things with huge energy and then crash, and that cycle feeds the sabotage, so I'm trying to stop adding fuel at the exact moment I feel invincible. There's more on that in boom, then crash.
7. Get help with what's underneath
Sometimes self-sabotage is the visible part of something bigger: depression, anxiety, substance use, an undiagnosed condition, or shame that goes way back. Working on those changes the pattern more than any trick.
Therapy helped me make sense of my own wiring. If you're curious which kind might fit, I wrote CBT, DBT, ACT in plain words. In Québec, public mental health services are free, though the waits are real, and Québec.ca explains where to start (811, your CLSC or your family doctor). If self-esteem is the root, building self-esteem after 50 is the longer game.
I still sabotage sometimes. Less, and later. Some weeks that feels like nothing. Most weeks it feels like a lot.
If the self-sabotage has turned into hurting yourself, or thoughts of not being here, the numbers for your country are on the Get help now page.